The invention relates to an apparatus for, and a method of, feeding piece goods to a tubular-bag packaging station.
Various such apparatuses are known from the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,663,915 describes a method of, and an apparatus for, packaging cheese in tubular bags. In this case, the cheese is conveyed onto a sheet material by a conveying belt in the immediate vicinity of the packaging station, the sheet material then being processed in the packaging station to form a tubular bag. No description is given of how the cheese is transferred onto the conveying belt. This is generally carried out in the prior art, however, by hand or by means of feed chains with carry-along elements.
CH-A-675,233, furthermore, discloses a method of, and an apparatus for, introducing chocolates fully automatically into containers provided therefor, the containers being conveyed, on a conveying belt, past a charging station. The charging station is provided with an optical position-detecting system, which senses the position of each incoming chocolate. On account of the data determined, a freely programmable gripping apparatus grips the chocolates and positions them in the desired alignment, and at the desired intervals, on a conveying belt. This conveying belt transports the chocolates to an introduction region with a second gripping apparatus, by means of which the chocolates are deposited in the container.
EP-B-0,439,741 discloses a robot for transporting articles in a timesaving manner from a first conveying belt onto a second conveying belt.
It is an object of the invention is to provide an apparatus for, and a method of, feeding piece goods to a tubular-bag packaging station, which are straightforward and cost-effective but efficient.
This object is achieved by an apparatus and a method having the features of patent claims 1 and 13, respectively.
According to the invention, the piece goods, by means of a position-detecting unit and a gripping unit, are positioned on a packaging-material web from a feed conveyer and, together with this packaging-material web, are conveyed to the packaging station, where the packaging-material web is processed to form a tubular bag.
In a preferred variant, the piece goods are positioned on the packaging-material web directly from the feed conveyer. In another variant, they are positioned in a predetermined position on an intermediate conveyer, which transfers the piece goods in this position to the packaging-material web.
The apparatus according to the invention allows feed chains with carry-along elements to be avoided. This makes it possible to reduce the production costs. In addition, the amount of space required by the installation as a whole is reduced.
The apparatus according to the invention allows a high degree of flexibility as far as the tasks of gripping and conveying the piece goods are concerned.
Furthermore, it makes an increased throughput possible. Further advantageous variants of the method and advantageous embodiments can be gathered from the dependent patent claims.